Ick. Gross. Crap.

Last night–in the middle of the night–I woke up shivering, absolutely freezing. In an absolute mental fog, I threw on an extra blanket and went back to sleep. Finally, I dragged my weak and weary ass out of bed this afternoon at two. The good news is that I didn’t (and don’t) have a fever. The bad news is that my energy level has been seriously in the red, and my stomach has been–once again–cramping. And one more terrible thing–I haven’t had a cup of coffee the entire day–not one single drop. (It hasn’t sounded good.)

That’s how I know things are serious.

Now it’s ten in the evening, and after spending most of the day in bed either reading or napping, I feel slightly better, a bit more energetic. (A bit.) Like, I can hold my head up without the support of three prayer candles and the Archangel Michael. That being said, I do have a good appetite and am keeping food down, so that’s something. Maybe–just maybe–I simply caught a twenty-four hour bug or ate something that disagreed with me. Maybe I’m not coming down with the flu for the third time this year–or dying.

That’d be really great–to not die just yet.

I guess we’ll see what happens tonight. Honestly, I think it’s a shit deal, the way a person can go to bed–exhausted, sure–but pretty much feeling finer than frog hair, and then the body can wake him (or her) up in the middle of a perfectly good dream by shivering, shaking, and twitching (or throwing up, or what have you). Talk about a rude awakening. Seriously, what the hell? From now on, I’m requesting that my body save all its complaints and dramatic activities for daylight hours.

Of course, I can imagine my body saying, “Hey turd, we TRY talking to you during the day, but YOU DON’T LISTEN.”

In which case I would have to respond–“Valid point.”

The book I’ve been reading today is called The Language of Change by Paul Watzlawick. The book was quoted several times in the hypnosis book I recently finished and is largely about the two sides of the brain (left and right) and how each side “thinks” and “speaks” differently than the other. In short, the left side thinks rationally and analytically, in words and “facts.” The right side, however, thinks creatively, in pictures and generalizations. As I understand it, a person’s world view, or their “this is the way things are,” is developed and held in their right brain first, AND THEN their left brain is used to justify it.

Think about THAT.

The book contends–and it makes sense to me–that since a person’s beliefs (and therefore their “reality”) is held in their right brain, it doesn’t make sense for them or their therapist to try to change or address their beliefs with left-brain language. Think about the number of times you’ve attempted to convince someone logically (that is, with your left brain) that they’re not bad-looking, or not a terrible dancer, or whatever. But if you were to speak the language in which that person’s beliefs were originally formed–well–then you might be getting somewhere. This is why metaphors and visualizations can work in changing beliefs and behaviors–because, like dreams, they are based on pictures, the language of the right brain. Likewise, this is why myths are important–because they use powerful images or symbols to communicate important ideas and ways of being–to your right brain. They’re not INTENDED to be taken as facts or even make sense to your left brain, that part of you that might (logically) ask, “Well, now, how COULD a person walk on water?!”

Personally, I intend to start paying more attention to both my body’s signals (like, to get more rest) and my right brain’s pictures and dreams. Because, like Sergeant Friday on Dragnet, I’ve got the left-brain thing down. (Just the facts, Ma’am.) I can rationalize and analyze all day long. I can give you a hundred reasons why something won’t happen, shouldn’t happen. And yet there’s this other part of me–half of my brain!–that knows anything is possible, that firmly believes no matter how badly the storms in my life may rage around me, they don’t have the power to bring me down. This is the part of me that says, “You can rise above anything,” the part that says, “You can walk on water.”

[When I originally posted this blog–last night–I got the right and left brains switched up, stating that the left brain thinks in pictures and dreams. It’s fixed now. It’s the right brain that does that.]